St. Louis Post-Dispatch - October 13 , 2001

Lifestyle: Healing Gardens

By Becky Homan - Garden Editor

Paper notes tied to a leafy red-twig dogwood wave in the breeze, like so many prayer flags on a Tibetan mountainside. Except that this is University City, Missouri., just a couple weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the nation's capitol.

Gardeners in this part of the world want to do something, anything, to help. And so, in this Midwestern front yard belonging to garden designer Linda Wiggen Kraft, there also are newly planted red and blue pansies over another new batch of nearly 70 red tulips, white anemones and blue hyacinth bulbs. American flags and a homemade sign (sealed in plastic) announces a new "peace and healing garden."

But the handwritten messages tied on the shrub by her neighbors and friends may best tell the story."Only in and through love can we have peace", reads one. "Engage in accidental acts of kindness. We are all one," says another."May the women of the world bring their healing grace to persuade the world not to go to war," reads yet another.And, in an homage to the creators of this planting: "May your garden of flowers flourish and bring comfort and happiness to all."

Wiggen Kraft's effort is not the only one in yards or on properties tended by St. Louis gardeners. Just beginning to take shape are new gardens for patriots, for healers and for those remembering victims of the attacks.

They include: Patriotic pots at Berry Hill Golf Course in Bridgeton, put together by employee Cindy Herrin and featuring packed combinations of blue pansies, red mums, greenish-white artemisia, fall-flowering kale and American flags. All of the plants can be put in the ground later, before a hard freeze, she says. "This is in response to the tragedy,"Herrin adds. "For a week, it really never occurred to me to do something with gardening until somebody said, 'We ought to do something patriotic for the golf course.'

Star-patterned, red, white and blue mulch surrounding a concrete planter of miniature evergreens - "like America rising," says gardener Edith James. Her 16-by-16-by-20-foot display is in front of her store, Comfort Shoe Specialists on Manchester Road, east of Interstate 270. The star and greenery honor her son, Jesse Fischer, 21, a Marine who's just been sent to Virginia.

"It's a very scary time for everyone," says James. "It has really felt good to make this statement." Fruit trees and flowering-and-fruiting shrubs (more than two dozen of them) that are going into the ground soon as a memorial at the not-for-profit Gateway Greening's Bell Community Garden, located between Vandeventer and Spring streets, near Grand Center. "It's in memory of victims in New York, D.C. And Pennsylvania," says Gateway's Gwenne Hayes-Stewart, "and to use as a demonstration of the urban possibilities of growing fruit and donating the produce to food pantries." Her organization also sent $500 in proceeds from a recent Gateway Greening event to Manhattan's Clinton Street Community Garden, located near the site of the World Trade Center.

A massive shade-tree planting is planned by Boy Scout Troop 323 in Waterloo. Troop leader Jerry Trehearne is calling officials with Forest ReLeaf and the National Tree Trust, among others, about putting in hundreds of trees at a time over the next few years, and at various locations, until the total reaches that of the more than 5,00 victims in the recent terrorist attacks. "Everybody's sitting around wondering, 'What can we do, outside of donating money or blood?,' which is good," Trehearne says. " This is a hands-on thing that helps us all and helps the nation."

Helping herself, her friends and neighbors heal is the primary goal of Wiggen Kraft in University City. Not so long ago, she helped a mother whose baby had died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. For the woman, Wiggen Kraft designed and built a contemplative space with vine-covered arbor, bench and fragrant rose bushes.

Last month, the need to heal came home. And on a beautifully clear, late-September morning, Wiggen Kraft and her gardening associate, Harry Asher, joined friends Sheena Kopman and Patty Lamb on Creveling Drive at one corner of Wiggen Kraft's front yard. The day before, she had ripped out an invasive, self-seeding annual called persilla. In its place, she and the others put in 12 bulbs of red Solva tulips, 30 'White Splendor' anemones and 26 blue-hued grape hyacinths for blooms next spring. Then came flats of fall-blooming pansies.

The group also lit seven-day votive candles and punched a homade sign plus a pair of American flags into the ground. The sign reads, "The soil of a peace and healing gardens is a sacred ground zero, where grief, sadness, fears, memories, hopes and dreams can be expressed, shared and given to the soil of mother earth." Asher also brought his Native American teachings to the ceremony, including smoke from a smudge stick of tightly packed "cleansing herbs"- sage and lavender. And Kopman sang.

"I have this idea," says Wiggen Kraft, "that like everbody else, I feel life is not the same since Sept. 11. I can't go back to what life was before," she adds. "My plan is to create a sacred space. A lot of people walk by here. I want them to participate, even if they want to bring their own signs."

There's no overall theme to her garden, no overriding anti-war point of view. "What we're doing is personal to each of us. I have a few flags and candles that I'm going to try to keep lit. There is an element of commitment to that. I'm so busy, I didn't want to add something else to my plate. By my life's shifted. It has for all of us."

She hopes passers-by will continues to rummage through a basket in the garden that holds pens, papers with ribbons tied to them and a note that reads: "Please add your prayers, thoughts, hopes and dreams to this garden by writing them down and hanging them on the bush." Her favorite so far, says the gardener is, "Lest we forget, how fragile we are. God bless all of us affected by this tragedy. Peace be with us."